


Brave

by AnneMcSommers



Series: Queliot Week 2020 [2]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, No beta we due like men, Queliot Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27680650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnneMcSommers/pseuds/AnneMcSommers
Summary: Day 4: It was real, this is realWhat if Quentin didn't leave during the funeral, and talked Penny into sticking around for the wake.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Series: Queliot Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024123
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	Brave

“It was real, this is real” Quentin whispered, tears running down his face.

“Hey, no, Quentin, that’s not what this was for.” Penny backtracked. 

Quentin turned towards at Penny, looking more alive than he had since before they lost magic. “You said they were okay. You said that this was the start of their story Penny, that they would be okay. This isn’t okay. He isn’t okay.”

“But he will be, he will move on Quentin.” Penny soothed, when he had let Quentin stay to see the wake in the cottage, this wasn’t how he was expecting it to go.

“Will he be, really though, will he live or will he be happy. Will he find someone else.” Penny started to speak and Quentin held up a finger to stop him.

“I am not talking some guy to screw, or some lackluster relationship to fill his time. I am talking love Penny, will he find someone else to love, someone who loves him the way I love him, will he be happy again, not just content. Can you promise me that? If you can I will walk through that door and get on that subway right now.” He stared down Penny. “Will he?”

Penny hesitated; he knew how Eliot’s story would go. In the end he would have someone, but only after he lost everyone else. Eliot would never recover, not completely, and while he had skimmed the book, Penny wished he had spent a little more time reading it, because he had obviously missed something. Nothing he had read would explain this. He went to answer, but he had waited too long.

“That’s what I thought. How do I get out of here?” Quentin demanded.

“What, you don’t, you stay in limbo, enjoy the bowling alley, etc., or you move on, and that’s it. Those are the options.”

“When you say move on, do you mean like through the wheel to rebirth, or elysian fields style, or, or, Penny,” Quentin paused, as if he had just thought of something. “Is there a punishment, you know for suicide. Am I even going to go to the good place?”

Penny froze. “I, uh, I don’t actually know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly get processed myself, library contract and all that. My job, is to help people come to terms with the end and to send them one. I don’t really know much about what comes after. None of use really does Quentin.”

“So, what, you just shuffle me off to be punished for all eternity? Really Penny?”

“You don’t know that’s what’s going to happen.” Penny argued.

“You don’t know that its not what’s going to happen. I might never see him again Penny, and I, I can’t accept that. Now, truth time, not asshole time, not, I’m doing my job time, level with me here, is there, you know, a way out. Any way, even just a rumor that you heard once.” Quentin asked.  
Penny was going to say no, but he remembered something that douchebag from his book club had said once, about a love story. He hadn’t been listening, because, well, douchebag had been speaking, but it was about challenges… The last but of caring had left when he realized he was bound to the library, and none of this shit applied to him. It must have shown on his face, because Quentin was all over him.

“What, what is it?”

“I am not sure exactly,” Penny grabbed Quentin’s arm, and they were back in the secrets to the grave department. “Wait here, I gotta go check on something.”

Quentin sat in the chair, staring at the hot chocolate on the table. It was tempting, really tempting. He was thirsty, and kind of cold, and it smelled amazing, but if he remembered one thing from fantasy it was that eating the food in another realm was a pretty good way to get yourself stuck there.

It felt like an age before Penny popped back in, “Ok, just checked in with book club, and”

“Wait, you are in a book club?”

“Seriously, that’s what you want to focus on?” Penny glared at Quentin.

“Ok, fine, fine, you checked with your book club, and?” Quentin replied rapidly holding his hands up in front of him.

“And there are, well for lack of a better word, a series of 3 challenges that can be done, to get out of the underworld.”

“Ok, where do I start?” Quentin stood, and Penny put a hand on his chest as if to hold him back.

“Whoa, hold on, its not that simple, you are going to need to hear all of this before you jump in all gung ho.” At Quentin’s nod, he continued.

“The thing is, there are only two challenges for you and they can only be completed if you are 100% committed to not moving on. The first one you have actually already passed. You didn’t eat or drink the food here, even though it was enchanted to be the thing that would bring you the most comfort. 

The second challenge, is pretty brutal, you have to relive the worst memories of your life, and at the end of it, you still have to get up and walk through that door.” Penny said, gesturing towards the door at the other end of the room. Quentin hadn’t even seen it before.

“And the last challenge, and this one is the hardest, because it isn’t for you. Someone, up there, alive, has to be trying to bring you back. All those spells and resurrections, all the ones they say bring people back, but only sometimes, well here’s the kicker, they all actually work. When they cast the spell a door will appear, all they have to do is unlock it. You open the door on this side and walk through.”  
“What’s the catch?” Quentin asked suspicious, it sounded way too easy.

“Well the main one for you is walking through that door after seeing all the bad shit that happened while you were alive, it would be hard enough for most people, but especially you after…” Penny trailed off.

“After I killed myself. “He stated bluntly. The stood in awkward silence a moment. “And the other catch?”

“It can’t just be anyone that unlocks the door. They have to be opening it for you, as you are, they need to know you, really know you, not some idealized version of you. Otherwise they may pull the spell off, but they end up with some warped version of you, or something else. I believe the exact term is ‘Come back wrong’. But if its the right person, all they have to do is unlock that door.”

“And if they don’t? If I don’t, if we fail, then?” 

“Then nothing honestly, you failed, you go back to limbo with the rest of them and wait your turn, no more express to ticket to the front of the line. You would need to come to peace with your death before you ended up back in my department, and let’s face it, that’s going to be a while for you.”

At Quentin’s skeptical expression Penny continued.

“Really, like 90% of people ultimately accept they are dead and there is no going back. Of the people who actually want to fight it, 99.999% of them have already failed the food test, so like maybe 2 people a year on a good year will go for it. But you gotta understand, we are up to like 56 million people a year dying, in the grand scheme of thing 2 is nothing, like not even a blip, and apparently pretty good entertainment for those so inclined to watch. So ya, they let it continue, no major consequences. Other than the not moving on.”

“You said I could still move on.” 

“You can, but knowing that you could have made it and didn’t, that screws with people, almost everyone who fails takes about 10 times as long to move on. And the people who make it past the second trial, well, when they don’t get through, they don’t usually. Move on that is, knowing that no one tried to bring them back, or even worse, no one ever really knew them, that just fucks with them.”  
“But people have done it?” Quentin insisted.

“Ya, 10…in the last 50,000 years, 10 have made it.”

Quentin hesitated, but then he thought of Eliot, sitting by the fire, and he knew he would never be able to move on, as long as there was a chance. Eliot was right about that. He took a step forward, and opened the door. 

He stopped before he stepped through, and turned. “Thank you, Penny,” And he stepped through before Penny could think up a reply.

**Author's Note:**

> So I couldn't leave the first part like that, but I couldn't add this as a continuation, it felt like it was taking away from the impact of Eliot's scene.


End file.
